bat's day at the fun park (a family outfit post)

my outfit details: 

top: h&m

skirt: vintage

boots: hand me down

corset: alice and willow

glasses: zenni optical

alices outfit details: 

top: vintage

leggings: gift 

shoes: gift (but i think they were from kohl's)

jamess outfit details:

shirt: gift 

vest: vintage

pants: h&m

shoes: vintage

pocketwatch: vintage

bow tie: handmade (by me!)

so, two thirds of the way through may, i think ive finally settled on a theme: "out". so far, may has been a great time for out. out with all our old junk (we had our first family yard sale on saturday), time out with friends and family (we were gone something like six of the last seven evenings), and now that my semester is over, lots of time for family outings (like the beach and disneyland). 

which brings us to todays topic: sunday was bats day at the fun park, and, if you know me, theme days at disneyland are my jam (i mean, dapper day, anyone?). now, obviously the three of us arent exactly involved in the goth community, so in order to not be, you know dressing in costume and effectively mocking an entire subculture, we went with a more victorian-influenced theme for our outfits. which was fairly easy for james and i because the vast majority of my clothes are black or some combination of black and white, and jamess typical fancy attire involves a vest and pocket watch anyway. we werent sure what to do with alice though. until we found that PERFECT vintage top in a random bag of orphan hand-me-downs at my moms garage sale. 

now, i had wanted to go to bats day again ever since james and i accidentally went last year (which was also on cinco de mayo, there was an interesting crowd that day), and we have ALL been waiting for my semester to end so we could have a REAL, ALL DAY disneyland day with lunch and treats and souvenirs and all that. 

which we did get, except, it was the crowdedest day ive probably ever seen in all my years of going to disneyland. were talking, going through sections of the upstairs line on the jungle cruise that i didnt even know EXISTED crowded. so there wasnt a lot of ride riding, and a big chunk of the day was spent at big thunder ranch, which i dont mind at all because its NEVER crowded and alice loves the goats and things like this happen:

it was crowded, it was hot, apparently pizza port stopped giving free refills, and my corset almost made me pull an elizabeth swan (its a real, steel boned waist training corset), but i cant say it was a bad day, because we did get the long day at disneyland weve been waiting for all semester, and somebody really needed a break from all the homework and cleaning and furniture moving:

 (obviously, that somebody is alice)

sometimes i forget that im sick (a nice morning at disneyland + weekly wishes)

last week we had a pretty full week. james was home most of the week (but since hes worked full time basically the whole month, i wasnt worried about it), and tuesday, he was so kind as to take alice to the beach so i could work. this was especially awesome because, drumroll please.... i was able to FINISH a little batch of scarves for the shop. this one with the bow print is my favorite: 

then, the rest of the week was fairly uneventful, i dont think we did anything notable except driving across town to the running shoe store because i found a fantastic deal on the nike frees that i had decided on getting (there was another shoe that was even lighter and more supportive, but really, i couldnt handle feeling like my feet were in an iron maiden). 

obviously why thursday night we were getting bored, and alice has been asking for the jungle cruise just about every day. so friday we decided to spend the morning at disneyland. normally id pack a lunch for us, but james was extremely antsy to get there quickly since big thunder mountain railroad just re-opened (its been closed for like, two years. this was a big deal), so we decided that it was our special family date for the week and wed also go out for lunch (ultimately, this was a fantastic call on jamess part because i had an incredible gluten free pizza that im still fantasizing about). 

we were at the park for maybe four, four and a half hours, and it was great. alice got her jungle cruise:

hung out with the goats:

got to meet robin hood (seriously, in my whole life ive NEVER seen robin hood):

we had forgotten to bring alices autograph book. obviously since robin hood was there (a favorite of both james AND alice) we had to get a new one. 

then after lunch alice had a special request. she wanted to ride the "space rockets" (astro orbiters or whatever, its basically dumbo but in tomorrow land). since shes asked to go on this ride probably the last three times weve been at disneyland right as were about to leave so weve always said no. we made sure she got to try the space rockets:

and i dont think ive ever seen her so excited about anything in her whole life. as soon as we got in the little rocket (which was WAY smaller than i remember it being), alice yelled "are you ready guys! lets blast off!" before we could even get the seatbelt on her. i just about died. 

then after that, james and i used our big thunder mountain fast passes (which we miraculously got right after they re-opened the fast pass distribution after closing it for some technical difficulties so we only had to wait about an hour), and then we went home for alices nap time. 

at which point i did all of the days chores that id neglected by playing hooky at disneyland, then cooked an elaborate dinner, and then went to bed thinking i could just pop right out of bed and make it to my friends bridal shower at 10:30. you know, like a normal person.

well, turns out i was wrong. so, so, so wrong. i did wake up on time, but i was still so groggy and in so much pain that getting dressed and putting on makeup and shoes felt like wrestling a bear. by time i had done those three small things (that I'm sure most people do every day without even thinking about it), i was so tired, so sore, and so emotional, that i just couldnt do anything else. i spent most of the day in bed, crying. wearing my fancy bridal shower dress. because all we did was spend four hours at disneyland and i SHOULD be able to do something as simple as go to a party. 

but i couldnt. and really, i should have expected that. because, im not a normal person. im sick. and sometimes (well, a lot of the time, lately) i forget about that. while having fibromyalgia doesnt really stop me from doing anything, it most certainly keeps me from being able to do everything. and lately, ive been too hard to be wonder woman. to say yes to everyone and to do all the things and go all the places and do all the work and have all the fun.

i feel like this would be draining enough for a healthy person, but for me, each seemingly small activity brings its own little baggage of pain and fatigue, and unless i take lots and lots of breaks (more than even i think i need), to deal with each thing one at a time, it all rolls together and compounds until i spend an entire day sobbing in the fetal position because i tried to do two big busy weekends in a row (remember, last weekend, we went to the zoo). and i really have to stop doing this. 

over the past eight (ish) years, ive learned to get used to living with fibromyalgia. to be happy with a slower, quieter, less busy life than what most people are used to. and most of the time, its not bad at all. yes i get tired easily, yes it takes me a very long time to recover from something as simple as a bike ride, and yes i am usually in a medium to severe amount of pain that no medicine really fixes. but as long as i take things slow, as long as i get plenty of rest, i can do whats important. i just, cant expect stressing over getting to a morning bridal shower immediately after letting myself get way too busy too many weekends in a row to result in anything other than panic attacks. 

i guess thats my life lesson for the week. 

on a much less somber note, my first fashion class starts tonight! 

AND, as i mentioned earlier, i bought running shoes and attempted to get my student id (turns out the day i went was during spring break so no one was there, next week ill try again) so last weeks weekly wishes went well. 

whats up for this week? mainly i just want to get a good start on my classes and get my textbooks taken care of. 

what are your goals for this week?

(p.s. stay tuned for tomorrow because ive got a REALLY exciting giveaway coming up!)

the time we went to the zoo.

on saturday we took alice to the zoo for the very first time. honestly, im a little embarrassed that it took us almost two and a half years to get her to the zoo, but for one reason or another weve just never been able to make it happen. but lately alice has been asking almost every day if we could go to the zoo. so last weekend I MADE IT HAPPEN. even if it meant going the morning after a night wedding on a weekend where james was playing on the worship team at church and i inadvertently made james miss dorks and dragons night. 

none of that really matters, because what matters is that we finally went to the zoo. 

and alice loved it:

now, i havent been to the la zoo in a long time. probably six or seven or maybe even more years (i remember my family had a membership when i was 15-16 and im pretty sure we went at least once after that but im not sure when that was), and apparently theyve done a LOT of work to the old zoo that i do NOT remember from the last time i was there. 

for instance, one of the first things you see when you get past the gift shops is this giant sea world status tank for the seals where you can actually see them swimming and playing instead of the old, sad concrete enclosure they used to live in. alice really liked watching the seals swim:

the next thing we checked out was the brand new reptile house, which despite being a little crowded and claustrophobic (it was saturday, after all, i imagine its not nearly as bad on a weekday), was really, really cool. especially because most of the exhibits have perfectly kid-height windows:

alice really liked all the snakes, she was particularly enamored with this one:

 (though she kept calling them "giant snails", i guess we need to work on that)

my favorite part of the reptile house was these cute cuddling lizards:

after that we headed outside to look at some more animals before lunch, with such highlights as this komodo dragon eating from the HUGEST bone ive ever seen:

and alice asking me to drop her in the kangaroo cage. im not kidding. she just really, really wanted to hang out with the kangaroos i guess. 

then we took a short break for lunch (where i noticed that i accidentally bought tuna pouches with soy sauce in them and almost had a panic attack because i only had snacks for the whole day but then we got ice cream and everything was better), and looked for some more animals. the gorilla exhibit also has some really great kid-friendly windows so alice got to get really close to the gorilla:

then something funny happened. i was trying to take a picture of james and alice together, and she would not look directly at the camera lens. shed look at my face, or at my hands, or at james or anything else but not the camera. so i pointed to the camera lens and as im trying to explain to alice where she needs to look james says "the camera has an eyestalk, just like a dalek. look at the eyestalk"

and then boom:

perfect picture. because apparently "dalek" and "eyestalk" are more relatable to alice than "camera" and "lens". not sure if this is a parenting win or fail...

now alice had two requests as far as animals were concerned: lions and elephants. well when we finally found the lions, they were closed. no lions, just a sign reading "this exhibit is closed for the day". so while alice didnt get to see the lions, she did have fun with the telescope thats supposed to be for looking at lions:

so much fun, in fact, that i had to physical pry her away from it kicking and screaming in order to go look at the giraffes. its a rough life when your mom makes you look at giraffes:

(this is alice upset because not only am i a mean bossy pants that made her look at giraffes, i am also a big fun sucker for not letting her get into the cage to play with them)

then came my favorite part of the day, when we sat on the shaded amphitheater thing to watch the chimpanzees do chimpanzee stuff:

normally im not a big fan of chimpanzees but there were SO. MANY. BABIES. it was adorable.

after that, we looked at some more animals, took a little break at the playground (i totally forgot the zoo had a playground), and then we saw the black bear get a snack and that was cute:

now my one chief complaint about the la zoo is that the layout is really confusing and even with a map its difficult to see where things are in relationship to each other and the twisty paths that connect them. so the elephants that alice specifically requested to see? we didnt even find those until the very end of the day after she had fallen asleep. 

but we did end up getting a membership for the year, so well be back. and alice will finally get her lions and elephants. 

the time we went to a wedding (an outfit post + my new business venture + weekly wishes).

we had a busy weekend over here. friday night we had the privilege of attending the wedding of my dear friend shannon to her new husband jacob, saturday we went to the zoo, and then yesterday there was potluck lunch after church. needless to say, im really surprised that i did anything today, let alone all the chores + errands + shoe shopping (which ended up turning into an extended visit to the mall) PLUS getting a bomb diggity dinner on the table at a somewhat decent hour (seriously guys, this pizza will make you never want to eat a different pizza ever again. i just wish i could have a chance to try it on real bread). 

its been a pretty exciting and productive day, to say the least. although my work work, like writing blog posts and sewing the pile of the soon-to-be-announced new product for the shop... well, lets just say alice just went to bed and im just now getting started. but, better late than never, right? i hope so. 

anyway, heres what i wore to shannons wedding:

outfit details:

dress: vintage

shoes: aldo (thrifted, originally purchased for my wedding)

necklace: macys

glasses: zenni optical

purse: voz collective (from back in the old days when jackie made purses)

nails: jamberry in diamond dust sparkle and cup of tea

first off, i just want to clarify that even though this dress totally looks like a bridesmaids dress (and just so happens to be the exact color of the wedding theme) i was not in the wedding. 

the bride did pick my dress though. 

for real. a few weeks ago shannon texted me saying "hey i got you this green silk saks fifth avenue dress from the last chance goodwill. it needs some repair on the zipper but it looks like your size and its just too nice to get shipped to africa and its only $2". so obviously i was like "heck yes". 

and then i actually saw the dress and i was like "HOLY MOLY ARE YOU KIDDING ME THIS IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DRESS IVE EVER LAID EYES ON WHY ARE YOU GIVING IT TO ME FOR FREE AND NOT SELLING IT ON ETSY FOR THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS" and then i was like "i know its probably too fancy and the exact color of your wedding but can i still wear it to the wedding anyway", and being the absolute doll that she is, she said "of course"

but seriously. its the most beautiful dress ive ever seen, from the shimmery, swishy silk fabric to the impeccable construction (the fashion nerd in me just about DIED when i saw that the lining was HAND SEWN into the bodice so the stitching wouldnt show, you just dont see that in dresses these days). oh, and did i mention it actually fits? vintage dresses NEVER fit me right. ive got broad shoulders and a deceptively large ribcage and no matter how hard i try, vintage dresses just will not zip for me. but this one did. perfectly. 

obviously with such an amazing dress i didnt want any accessories to distract from it, so i just paired it with some plainish pumps and pearls and a simple hairdo. oh and this really awesome clutch that i got at a craft fair back when i used to do lots of cool craft fairs that i thought was lost for like two years but then i found it in a suitcase while i was cleaning a couple weeks ago and it was the best day ever. 

now, if youre really observant, you probably noticed that i included my nails in the outfit details, which ive never, ever done before. this is going to become a regular thing. and theres a reason for this. its because i just started on a new business adventure (i just decided right now that i like that word better) as a consultant for jamberry nails! obviously im going to tell you more about this later (spoiler alert: theres going to be a giveaway involved in my launch party thats happening next week), but for now ill just say that these are BY FAR the BEST nail wrap product that has EVER existed and you need to check them out RIGHT NOW (and also take this enthusiasm seriously because im literally never this excited about a product ever). you can learn more about them here (and obviously stay tuned for my launch party next week!)

oh! and remember how theres nothing new in the shop right now because i was too busy making bow ties and pocket squares for a wedding? well this was the wedding. i thought i should have something to show for this prolonged absence, so heres the adorable groom sporting his poverty luxe accouterments:

and as for weekly wishes? well i definitely made good on last weeks wishes: i filled out and turned in my financial aid appeal form (now im anxiously awaiting the verdict...) PLUS i updated my name change AND checked out the book lists for my classes. also, today i tried on running shoes (i havent made a decision yet though, these were lightweight and comfortable, but these were even better, though i dont know if they were fifty dollars better). also also, i got a big pot of cream of asparagus soup in the freezer AND we took alice to the zoo (and those werent even on the list for this week!), so marchs monthly wishes just may be completed after all!

this weeks goals are to get one more batch of beans in the freezer, decide on and order/buy my running shoes, and go get my student id (i couldnt do it last week because the name change takes a few days to process). should be a fun week. 

what are your goals for this week?

some days, you just have to go to disneyland.

this week, james has been home all week (his job is a kind of an on-call type thing). now this was pretty fun the first time it happened back in february, but in the approximately ten times its happened since then, its, um, how do i put this delicately... lost its charm. 

it seems to be the universal truth for stay at home moms, that no matter how perfect your weekday routine is, as soon as dads home, all established order goes right out the window.  if you havent noticed by now, im not exactly the flexible type (but im working on it, i promise), so these types of weeks quickly descend into boredom and bickering and by wednesday night we were 900% done. 

so yesterday we ditched our responsibilities, packed a picnic lunch and headed to disneyland for a few hours. and it was great. alice got to spend some time with alice (who by the way, is really hard to find for a character who has two rides and a store themed after them):

alice was all over it, if we hadnt literally just got there, im sure she would have been content to leave. i mean, how cute it this:

alice specifically requested "pirates" (not sure why, she always cries) and "see mickey", but we didnt see regular mickey anywhere so she had to settle for halloween mickey at big thunder ranch: 

 which was totally fine because then she also got to pet the goats (which we had promised her last time but big thunder ranch was closed to set up halloween):

bet you didnt know disneyland had goats. well disneyland totally has goats. the nicest, sweetest, most patient and docile goats in the whole world. and alice loves them. since school has started, the park was pretty empty, but unfortunately weekday mornings are when all the stay at home moms take their toddlers, so a lot of the alice-appropriate rides still had unacceptably long lines (i mean, 20 minutes for peter pan? no thanks). 

even though it totally threw off my day/week as far as routine and productivity, we really needed to get out of the house, it was just what we needed. 

also, since we came back at naptime and had the whole afternoon/evening at home (where alice whined about wanting to go back to disneyland), i also got to spend some time working on these baby sized hair bows (on pin curl clips):

which should be up in the shop later this weekend. 

the time we went to an awesome estate sale.

this is one of those weekends where just about every second is booked, and mostly with other peoples plans. not that its actually that bad (today we went to target, had lunch with my grandma, then went to the park and dinner with my dad and stepmom), its just busy. and draining. and i am SO not in control of the situation and i hate it (im a closet psycho control freak if you havent noticed).  

but yesterday. yesterday we went to the BEST ESTATE SALE EVER. honestly we havent been going to as many thrift stores and estate sales as id like lately, because weve been an extra special amount of broke and our apartment is just about full, but i got my weekly victorias vintage email and there was something that i just could not resist. 

an estate sale. at a hoarders house. just a few blocks from our house. perfect, right? except, we didnt have any cash. but james was oh so kind and generous and offered to look through his magic the gathering cards and see if there were some he could sell at the card shop before we went to the sale. he came back with $27, and it was ON:

alice was surprisingly patient (though that could be because we let her pick out a toy), but it didnt take long for us to run out of arms to carry what was sure to be way more than $27 of treasure:

but when we got to the exit, the lady told us they only wanted $30 for the lot. we said we only had $27 and she said ok. it was like christmas and my birthday all rolled into one. we got quite a few things, but my favorite picks of the day are this super fancy jewelry box:

which has like, a million compartments and i just put all my jewelry in it this afternoon and i can not believe how much dresser space it freed up (plus my jewelrys actually organized).

this smith & wesson printed mirror piece:

which already looks pretty spiffy hanging over our couch. 

but most importantly, on a table waaaaayyy on the other side of the sale that i had to quickly maneuver over too while precariously balancing my other purchases before nobody else could grab it, was this, beautiful, perfect, unused (albeit missing the whistling piece if it had one) LE CREUSET tea kettle:

i mean seriously. how perfect is this? the lighting in my kitchen is terrible, so you cant see that its actually a soft turquoise rather than green, its actually much prettier in person, AND i can get rid of the old, ugly crappy $10 kettle we got from target when we first got married! (also, please pardon my dirty stovetop, but kitchen cleaning day is tuesday)

now if youll excuse me, i have to go and get some sleep because i have to be up bright and early tomorrow morning to take my mother in law to disneyland. 

free family fun. lomita library story time.

i think i mentioned once that wednesday is our big busy day. if you had asked me about it a couple months ago i probably would have said that with some sort of resentment, but lately our crazy busy wednesday as started to grow on me. mostly because alice has really gotten into going to story time. 

the story time we go to is at the lomita library. technically its a "preschool" storytime, and the "toddler" story time is on tuesday, but for most of the year im scheduled to work on tuesdays (one of these days ill tell you all about my day job), so wednesday mornings work out better for us. this actually isnt even that big of a deal since most of the kids come with younger siblings anyways so theres lots of other toddlers. 

anyways, story time has become a huge staple in our weekly routine (which i need to do some serious work on since all three of us are starting to get some serious summer burnout), because alice LOVES it. ive been wanting to write a post about it basically since i started blogging, but since i usually take alice by myself i cant really get any decent pictures. last week james was home on wednesday, so now i finally have story time pictures:

as far as library story times go, this one is exactly what you would expect, the kids sit all around miss jennifer while she leads some songs and nursery rhymes and reads a couple of short books:

miss jennifer is fantastic. she is so fun and engaging and shes SO great at mixing the right amount of new and familiar material so the kids stay interested. alice was a little on the young side when we started going, but now after a few months shes learned a lot of the rhymes and totally participates:

except when she doesnt...

now im really happy about how much alice has learned from going to story time, shes gotten WAY better at sitting still and listening, shes learned several new songs that she sings every day at home, shes gotten a bit more interested in reading books AND its really improved her vocabulary. its seriously super cute how she tries to say "library" and "miss jennifer". alice on the other hand is most excited about getting to do a new craft every week:

seriously. i wish i had a dollar for every time shes tried to ditch the story part early to get a jump start on her craft. obviously she takes after her mother on this one. 

one of my favorite things about this story time is that the timeframe is completely reasonable for toddler attention spans. its about 30 minutes of songs/stories, and about 15 minutes of crafts, and then the kids can go play with all the fun library toys (all very similar to toys alice already owns, but for some reason she only likes the library ones). this is so perfect, because some weeks this is about all alice can handle, but on the weeks she has a bit more energy to burn before lunch, we can stay and play. 

lomita is kind of a far drive for us (a little over 20 minutes each way), but its totally worth it. alice loves it and its become one of my favorite parts of the week. 

stay tuned for a quick little tutorial this weekend!